


Between Us

by Riona



Category: Persona 4
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28940196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: Yosuke has a horrible suspicion he might have a crush on Yu. It would’ve been nice if he could have realised thisbeforeYu left Inaba.
Relationships: Hanamura Yosuke/Narukami Yu, Hanamura Yosuke/Persona 4 Protagonist
Comments: 11
Kudos: 61





	Between Us

Sunday morning, blue skies, no work, and Yosuke wakes late. He’s been sleeping past ten on free days ever since Teddie went back to the TV world; Yosuke hadn’t realised how much his internal clock had come to rely on that guy prodding him awake or calling his name or clattering around his room in the mornings, like a pet demanding attention.

He’s dialling Yu’s number almost before he’s fully awake. They should hang out; it feels like he hasn’t seen him in—

Yosuke panics and hangs up, halfway through the first ring.

He can’t ask Yu to hang out. Yu isn’t _here_ any more. For an instant, he somehow forgot.

It takes Yosuke another moment to realise he didn’t actually have to hang up. He could have just called and talked to Yu. Yeah, it’s no in-person meetup, but it’s the closest he’s going to get for a while.

He hesitates, his thumb hovering over the dial button.

He shouldn’t try to call again right now. If Yu doesn’t pick it up, he’ll see later that he’s got _two_ missed calls, and that might make him think something’s wrong. Yosuke doesn’t want to freak him out.

Better to just wait until Yu calls him back.

His phone starts ringing in his hand, and he’s almost startled into dropping it.

Okay, but he shouldn’t answer it _right_ now. He’d just planned a quick _hey, what’re you up to, wanna go somewhere?_ call; if it’s going to be an actual _hey, how’re you doing, let’s catch up_ conversation instead, he needs a moment to prepare for that.

Man, casual conversations were so much easier when he saw Yu every day. Now that they can only really talk over the phone, it feels like every conversation has so much _pressure_ on it.

He lets the call ring out.

-

It’s stupid, he knows it’s stupid, but he keeps catching himself daydreaming about Yu coming back. Yosuke looking up when the classroom door opens, the moment he recognises those shoulders and that hair and that barely-there quirk of a smile. He wouldn’t even be able to pretend to focus on class, so busy thinking about getting to talk to Yu at the end of it.

The lesson ends, everyone disappears, and it’s just him and Yu, facing each other in the empty classroom. (Well, yeah, there’s no way Chie would have left, but he doesn’t need to complicate this daydream.)

_Hey,_ Yosuke says, smiling a little and definitely not grinning embarrassingly all over his face. _Wasn’t expecting you back so soon._

A small, awkward grin cracks through Yu’s usual careful neutrality. _Well, I missed you._

Again, yeah, Yosuke probably wouldn’t be enough to bring Yu all the way back to Inaba. (In that case, he’d never have left at all, right?) But this doesn’t have to be realistic.

Anyway, he’d obviously mean he’d missed all the others as well. It’s just that Yosuke’s the one he happens to be talking to.

_You haven’t been answering my calls,_ Yu says in his mind.

Ugh. No. Don’t think about that. He says something else instead. _You want to go down to the river?_ or _You want to see a movie?_ or something.

The point is that Yu’s back, and he and Yosuke spend some quality time together, and it’s just like old times. Only, you know, without the murders.

Maybe they’d get into another playfight on the riverbank, as equals this time, without all the inferiority crap behind it. Yu’d win, probably; there’s only so far Yosuke can suspend his disbelief. Pinning Yosuke down by his wrists, smirking into his face. Both of them breathing hard, in pain and exhausted but feeling pretty damn good, and—

In real life, sitting in the classroom, Yosuke winces his eyes shut and kind of bats at the air in front of his face, like he can knock away the images with his hand. There’s some weird stuff trying to push its way into his head when he’s just trying to picture a fun evening with his buddy.

Okay, maybe there’s no fighting on the riverbank. Maybe they go back to Yu’s room at his uncle’s house instead. Just the two of them, and—

And they—

They do totally normal things, they do normal friend things. They – they go downstairs and they hang out with Nanako-chan, they help her with her homework. That’s normal, that’s safe.

They definitely don’t—

God, what’s _wrong_ with him?

-

He’s missed another call from Yu, he sees just after he gets home. The knowledge seems to take up residence somewhere in his throat.

He clears the notification.

Yosuke just misses him, right? His head’s just doing weird things because his best friend’s not in Inaba any more. He’s not...

He’s definitely not having any kind of personal revelation, for at least six different reasons, only one of which is the fact that it’s too goddamn late for that now.

Here’s the thing. Yu’s a great friend, okay? This steady, calming, thoughtful presence. Surprisingly funny sometimes. Also kind of weird? Yosuke once went to visit him and found him stroking a cat in the road outside his house, and they sat and chatted while Yu just kept petting the cat, with single-minded determination, for four solid hours.

Anyway. Yu’s a great guy. Anyone would miss him. And it makes sense that, without his calming presence, Yosuke would be... less calm.

Yosuke has been doing extensive research on the Internet. Dreams don’t have to mean anything. _Thoughts_ don’t have to mean anything. Getting turned on by weird things? He’s a teenager; it’d probably be weirder if he didn’t.

The point is, even if he really, really feels down in his stomach that he wants to be making out with Yu right now, it doesn’t – it doesn’t necessarily mean he _actually_ —

God. He’s so screwed. Can’t this just... not be happening to him?

Couldn’t it at least have happened to him before Yu got on a train and _left_?

-

He gets a text from Yu in the morning. _Everything OK?_

Oh. Of course he’d be worried. Yosuke still hasn’t got around to calling, after his cut-off attempt, and he’s ignored all of Yu’s efforts to call him back.

Well, _ignored_ isn’t the right word, but he hasn’t answered them.

_Absolutely!!_ he sends back.

Two exclamation marks might be overdoing it. It’s too late now.

He stares at their text log, his insides feeling like crumbling cement, until he can’t take the suspense any more and switches his phone off.

-

“Yosuke-san,” Naoto says, that afternoon, hurrying to catch up with him on his way out of the school gates. “May I speak with you?”

“Huh? Yeah, of course.”

“Yu-san called me yesterday.” A moment’s pause, which Yosuke spends trying to calm down the stupid part inside him that flips out at the mention of Yu’s name. “He seemed concerned about you.”

Yosuke forces a laugh. Probably a bad move; it comes out sounding high and way too obviously fake to his ears. “What? It’s just me; what’s he got to worry about?”

“That’s what I’m here to establish. Apparently he’s been struggling to contact you.”

“Did he actually ask you to come to me with this, or do you just _have_ to play detective?”

Naoto looks startled, and then embarrassed, maybe a little angry. And, whoops, there it is, Yosuke’s feeling bad.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry. I get why you’re asking. I just—” He hesitates. “It’s kind of complicated. I don’t really know how to explain it.”

If he thinks about it, though, Naoto’s one of the few people he might actually be able to talk to about this.

He thinks his friends might be able to handle the guy thing. (Probably better than he’s handling it himself, if he’s honest.) They’re happy to hang out with Kanji, in spite of all the question marks over _his_ situation.

But Yosuke’s bigger concern here is making sure that Yu _never finds out_ , and that might limit his options.

Chie’s terrible at keeping secrets; he doesn’t think she’d deliberately _tell_ anyone, but she’d give it away somehow. Teddie’s even worse. Yukiko’s good at maintaining appearances, but she doesn’t always seem to recognise the implications of the things she says, which means he can’t completely trust her to keep this under wraps. Rise...

Rise can definitely keep a secret, but she’s also _very_ interested in Yu, and Yosuke can’t be absolutely certain that she wouldn’t kill the competition.

There’s Kanji. He can be better at keeping things quiet than you might expect. But, honestly, after all the time Yosuke’s spent taking shots at him, he’s kind of hesitant about handing him the ammunition to shoot back.

That leaves Naoto. Who’s just looking at him in unsettling silence, waiting for him to expand.

Yosuke closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and nearly trips over himself, because, oh, yeah, it’s not a great idea to close your eyes when you’re walking home from school.

“Okay,” he says, eyes definitely open again and fixed on the path ahead. “It’s not, like... a huge thing.” If he says that, it’ll be true, right? “I just...” He’s blushing, isn’t he? He’s blushing. Great. “I, uh – wait, do you know this already?”

“This?” Naoto asks. “You haven’t said anything yet.”

Would’ve saved him a lot of having to put stuff into words if Naoto had already figured it out. So much for being a detective. “I think... I might be kind of... into... Yu?”

He can _feel_ his own voice getting steadily higher over the course of the sentence. He definitely sounds ridiculous.

He sneaks a quick glance over at Naoto, who just looks blank.

“Anyway,” he says, looking away again, “that’s all. I’m just – I’m having some kind of weird feelings, and it’s making it awkward to talk on the phone.”

Silence.

He could just run? He’s pretty sure he can outrun Naoto. But then he’d have to find a new school, and it’s not like Inaba’s swimming in them.

“Let me make sure I understand.” Naoto’s voice is measured but oddly uncertain, and the sound of it tightens up every muscle in Yosuke’s body. “You’re... in love with Yu-san?”

“Wha— _no!_ ” Yosuke snaps, stopping dead and whipping around to glare. “I’m not _in love!_ I’m just feeling weird!”

Naoto hesitates. “I’ve never been entirely clear on the distinctions in this area. Would you say you have a crush?”

Yosuke makes a sound halfway between a groan and a whimper, pressing his hands over his face. “Whatever. Fine.”

“Well,” Naoto says, after a moment, “Yu-san is worried about you. If you could bring yourself to contact him, I’m sure he’d be glad to hear from you.”

It’s pathetic, the way hearing Yu worries about him kind of froths inside his chest. Just knowing that Yu thinks about him at all when he’s not there.

“You’re still okay with me?” he asks, reluctantly dropping his hands.

Naoto looks baffled. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, uh.” He takes a deep breath. “With me not being... normal.”

“You and I have gone inside televisions together,” Naoto points out. “If I wanted ‘normal’ friends, I imagine that would be a greater concern. There are certainly people who’d have something to say about the way I present myself.”

It’s true, when Yosuke thinks about it. His friends are kind of a weird bunch.

“So you didn’t know before?” he asks. “I keep panicking that maybe I’ve been totally obvious all this time.”

“I hadn’t suspected,” Naoto says, “but that may not mean much. Matters of the heart are something of a blind spot for me.”

Yosuke startles himself a little by laughing. “Guess you’re not such a great feelings detective, huh?”

“A... feelings detective?” Naoto pauses. “That’s probably a fair assessment.”

He could probably use a feelings detective right now. Someone who could tell him...

Tell him what? Tell him whether Yu would be interested? Like he needs anyone to tell him that.

He just has to sit on these feelings until they go away. He can do that, right?

At least Yu’s not around. It means Yosuke’s constantly missing him in this stupid aching way, but it should make it easier to keep things quiet.

“You can keep a secret, right?” he asks.

“In future, I’d suggest asking that _before_ you confide in someone,” Naoto says. “But yes. It may surprise you to learn this, but I have some experience keeping secrets.”

-

It’s weird how much better Yosuke feels, now that he’s spoken to Naoto and that friendship still seems to be intact. Yeah, Yu’s still not here, and, yeah, Yosuke still has a _lot_ of unwelcome emotions tied up in that, but he doesn’t feel so alone any more. The feelings aren’t just trapped inside his ribcage any more, building up pressure. Someone knows.

He’s feeling brave enough to turn on his phone once he’s back in his room, see if Yu’s responded to his ‘yeah, totally okay, definitely not in love with you’ assurance. He’s a little afraid that Yu will have sent twenty texts in the meantime, or maybe that he won’t have replied at all. But there’s only the one: _Glad to hear it. Do you have time for a call? It’d be good to talk to you._

It takes Yosuke maybe twenty minutes to decide what he’s going to say. He keeps glancing back up at that last line: _It’d be good to talk to you._

_Soon,_ he writes, in the end. _Sorry._

-

“Hey, Kanji,” Yosuke says. “You got time?”

Kanji beams at him. Yosuke’s never going to be over how scary Kanji looks when he’s pleased and friendly. “What’s up, Senpai?”

“Got an extra lunch,” Yosuke says. The advantage of being the Junes heir: you’re never short on just-past-its-expiration-date bento. “You want to join me up on the roof?”

-

Kanji scarfs down the bento enthusiastically and gives Yosuke some of his homemade apple rabbits in return. They are, Yosuke reluctantly has to admit, extremely cute.

If they’re going to have this conversation, they’re going to have to have it before lunch break ends. Yosuke crosses one leg over the other, folds his arms, staring down at his lap. Trying to find the right words.

Yu’s perceptive, would probably have asked him what’s wrong by now. He can’t expect that from Kanji.

Yosuke looks up. “Uh...”

“Mm?” Kanji asks, looking over at him.

He can do this. Talking to Naoto went okay. He can do this.

“Uh,” Yosuke says, “I was wondering how you dealt with being maybe, kind of... gay.”

Kanji’s expression goes hard. “I told you a million times, I’m not—”

“I didn’t say gay,” Yosuke says, hastily. “I said _kind of_ gay.” He’s still not sure exactly what Kanji is, but he’s into Naoto, right? Something about that doesn’t feel _totally_ straight. “I – I said _maybe_!”

“I don’t get why you gotta keep makin’ fun of me! I get enough of that; I don’t need it from my friends!”

“I’m not doing that,” Yosuke assures him, with kind of a sinking feeling in his general stomach area, because, yeah, he has definitely made fun of Kanji in the past. “I’m just – I’m missing Yu, right? Only... maybe not a normal amount?”

“What’s a normal amount?”

Yosuke swallows. “Okay. _Don’t_ tell anyone, but I think I’m kind of in – I might kind of have a crush on Yu. Maybe.”

“Wait, _seriously?_ ” Kanji asks. It’s more incredulous than pissed, but it’s so loud that Yosuke cringes and glances over at the girls at the other end of the roof.

“Okay, look.” Yosuke squeezes his eyes shut. “I know this is your chance to get in all kinds of revenge mockery, and I know I totally deserve it, but can you – can you please, please, please just help me first? Please?”

Pause.

“I’m not gonna mock you, man,” Kanji says.

Yosuke opens his eyes, hesitantly. “Huh?”

“Having feelings where people can see ’em?” Kanji asks. “That’s badass. I’m not makin’ fun of anyone for that.”

It feels kind of humiliating, and also weirdly... good? Nobody has _ever_ called Yosuke a badass.

“Don’t know if I really got any advice for you, though,” Kanji says, scratching his neck. “Just don’t get in a TV so your nude Shadow can give you shit about it, I guess?”

Yosuke considers this. “Good advice.”

-

He leans against the back wall of Junes once his shift is over, staring at the phone in his hands. There’s a part of him that keeps telling him to delay the call, leave it until he’s in his room at home. Somewhere more comfortable.

He has to do it _now_ , or he’ll lose his nerve.

He presses the phone against his ear. Closes his eyes, listening to it ring. Every ring seems to fall straight through his ear and tumble around in his guts.

Yu’s not going to answer.

_Click._

“Yosuke?”

Yosuke swallows. He thought he’d braced himself for this, and he’s only just realising that he definitely did not do that at all. “Hey, partner.”

“It’s good to hear from you,” Yu says, and the relief in his tone seems to simultaneously warm Yosuke’s entire body and ruffle up a lake of guilt inside him. “I guess you’ve been busy?”

“I’m really sorry,” Yosuke says. “I _wanted_ to talk to you. I just...”

He doesn’t want to lie. But he’s not ready to tell the truth, either. It’s too complicated right now, miles apart, on opposite ends of a phone connection. He’ll have to wait until Yu next visits Inaba.

It’s weird to realise he’s thinking of it as something he _can_ tell Yu, now. Maybe talking to Naoto and Kanji had something to do with that.

“I think I’ve been missing you too much,” he says. “Does that make sense?”

Yu pauses for a moment. “I think I might understand that.”

Does he _really_ understand it? It’s probably too much to hope for. But it sets a stupid little hope fluttering in Yosuke’s chest anyway.

Maybe he doesn’t have to wait for Yu to visit.

“I’ve kind of been missing the city, too.” He tilts his head back against the wall, looking up into the clear evening sky. “What are you doing for Golden Week?”


End file.
